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The character 蜉 appears almost exclusively in the compound 蜉蝣, referring to the mayfly, an insect known for its extremely brief adult life. It is a phono-semantic character, combining the insect radical 虫 on the left with the phonetic 孚 on the right. Because the adult mayfly lives only a single day, 蜉蝣 features prominently in classical poetry and philosophy as a powerful metaphor for the ephemeral nature of human existence, mortality, and the passing of time.
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